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Sunday, June 29, 2014

I'm back with another post on the little Badab War vignette that I have nearly finished.

Today I want to talk a bit about the banner and banner arm with the Chapter insignia.

I have to spit it out straight away, I do not envy gamers who have decided to build a Lamenter army. I do not envy them, but I sure as hell do admire them. Painting whole squads of Lamenter shoulder Chapter insignia with the checkers and the bleeding heart must be a nightmare. At least that is what it was for me.

It took me several attempts to paint a the checkered pattern to my liking. In the end, I managed to do it by painting a black undercoat and masking the lines. Then I airbrushed in the white parts.

The circle is a decal of the Imperial Fists, with the heart painted on top of the fist. I found this the best way to paint in a perfect circle.

The fitting of the banner was also a bit tricky, and in order to do so I had to determine once and for all where the Space Marine would sit and pin it down. Only then could I apply the putty to form the shape of the banner.

After attaching the banner and arm to the marine, I continued to finish the painting. I wanted a metallic finish for the banner to contrast with the matt finish of the Lamenter.

At first, I was going to do a company banner, but in the end, I went for a squad banner. I thought this was more realistic and suitable for a small vignette. When the green stuff cured, I painted it up in the colours and insignia of the 3rd Company's 2nd squad.

Next post I wrap things up the the presentation of the finished product. Until then;

Monday, June 23, 2014

I am back again with another instalment for my little vignette of the Badab War, and a step closer to completing another New Year's resolution.

Today I bring you the fallen, yet always noble, Lamenter Space Marine. As you can see, the poor guy has taken a beating, but defiantly holds on to his squad banner - as is expected from this tragic yet illustrious Chapter. Well, you cannot see the banner in this post, since I had to rework it a bit due to modifications to the base.

The hardest aspect of painting this model was the battle damage - not the techniques themselves, but trying to figure out when enough is enough. They say less is more, and I tend to agree, but I wanted to grasp the feel of a protracted war with this little guy. Whether I have achieved that or not, is hard to say. I like to think that I have come close. But please let me know what you think in the comments below.

It was also important to aesthetically create a strong visual difference between the Lamenter and the Minotour. While the Minotaour is cleanly painted, the Lamenter is beaten bloody. This helps create an 'outer skin' of a story to a vignette that only holds basic poses.

The last pic below gives you an idea of ow the figure fits in to the bigger picture, so to speak. I think it fits in nicely with the background without getting lost within the complexity of it - at least I like to think so.

Well, that is all for today. I will be back soon with another blog post on this guy describing the work I did on the other arm and the squad banner.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Maybe you remember this little vignette on the shelf of shame in my man cave. Well I listed this down as one of my New Year resolutions and here I am making good on that claim.

So I have been doing a lot of work on this project, but for this post I will focus on the base since I have finished painting it up. I apologize for the lack of progress pics, but the high season at work has started and my time dedicated to my hobby has been further reduced.

Well, I have to admit that painting the base was even more complicated and complex than the miniatures. I found a lot of difficulty with the marble on the floor panels and walls, but in the end I think I got a good result.

I had to raise the floor a tad due to fitting problems, and this forced me to redo the Lamenter's banner which was fitted to the previous height. A bit of a hassle, but it could not be avoided. Actually it could have been avoided with a bit more careful planning - but that is another story and lesson for another blog post.

On the bright side, raising the floor allowed more of the work under the floor tiles to be seen - and that is definitely a plus, since I put a lot of work into that section.

The part I enjoyed most while painting up the base is the weathering and the effects, namely the rust, dust, blood splattering and the energy effects.

The blood on the floor had to be rearranged a bit as I calculated the position of the Lamenter wrongly - yep more planning!, but with the finished product you will see that it does not really effect the overall composition.

The energy effects on the energy bars have not been done in these pictures except for the green painting. This is because I wanted plasma streaks to jump off the bars and onto the banner of the Lamenter. You will be seeing this in a later blog post.

Well that's all for this week. I will return with another installment of this project featuring the Lamenter himself.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Today its the second part of the Icarus flyers article. I have to admit that overall I like the shape and form of these models and I hope I did them justice with my quick painting scheme.

Enough talk then - on with the article. The next step from where we left off last week is the masking for the camouflage pattern. Like all the other models I did in this fashion, this part is the most time consuming, but the results are worth it in the end. I kept the colours the same as the Ptolemy bombers, since they are both medium flyers.

I moved on to painting all the basic colours and metallic parts. Like all the Dystopian War models in my fleet, I only paint basic colours with very little highlighting unless necessary. In the case of the Icarus I highlighted the bronze power plant in the centre.

Once these base coats are dry, it is time for the enamel and oil washes. These type of washes let you go back and 'clean up' after application with a q-tip and white spirit. It gives a very nice tone and depth to the model.

When all the cleaning up is done the next step is detailing. This consists of painting up the lights, decorations, energy effects, the chimneys and so on. When this step is done, the models are ready to be fielded.

And several group shoot, as per tradition. I can't help myself, I just like these kind of pictures.

RESOLUTION COMPLETED

That's right, this is one of the resolutions I made and now it is complete. All the models in my COA fleet (the ones I play at least) are now painted up. That means it is time to move on to a another resolution; that is the Minotaur & Lamenter video. Another mini-project long over due.

Well farewell and good health from your dedicated blogger - Nightrunner.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

This is the last stretch of my first New Year's resolution to finish up my COA force for Dystopian Wars. I will not go into detail with these two posts as the techniques used are the same as my other COA entries. So without further ado, let us start.

My fist job was to attach the DZC flight widgets to the models. Like the Ptolemys, they offer very sturdy hold and easy dissembling for transportation.

Unlike most of my COA models, the Icarus was not a very good cast. It suffered the same problems as my Daedalus. The pic directly below shows the unevenness of the cast along the ridge, near the engines.

The solution was to file it down and add strips of styrene to them. This had a double effect of covering up the filing and adding more detail to the model - a win/win situation.

The next step is the painting. This is done like all the other units I have painted so far. A black undercoat, followed by the base colour.

I will cover the next steps in a few days when I will bring this line of posts to a conclusion - for now!